


Ice Warmed Up

by koritsimou



Series: To find more [4]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Multi, but then courf, this was just supposed to be sick fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-19
Updated: 2013-02-19
Packaged: 2017-11-29 19:52:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/690804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/koritsimou/pseuds/koritsimou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jehan is sick, but still never one to miss an opportunity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ice Warmed Up

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pembroke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pembroke/gifts).



> Alexa isn't feeling well, so I wrote her Jehan not feeling well, and then it got a little plotty, but I like it.
> 
> I hope you do too.

Parnasse lets himself into Jehan’s apartment and is surprised to find it colder than the stairwell. Maybe it’s the last exhale of the cigarette he just stamped out as he jammed the key in the door, but for a second Parnasse thinks he can actually see his breath.

“Jehan?” he calls through the small flat, as he hangs his key on the rack.

He moves to the living room to shuck off his jacket, but quickly changes his mind. It’s even colder than the hall, the reason obvious as both of the living room windows are pushed open as far as they go. Parnasse is closing the first when a quiet voice answers, “In here.”

Not quiet, hoarse, Parnasse realises when he strides into the bedroom and Jehan croaks, “Hey.”

Jehan is sitting at his desk in his ‘pyjamas’ - really just an uncharacteristically sedate floral print t-shirt that is actually Montparnasse’s and a pair of boxer briefs - surrounded by tissues and highlighters. His hair is a messy plait-turned-bun, impaled with no fewer than three pens. The bedroom window is wide open too. Jehan looks up as Parnasse crosses the room to the desk. His nose is rubbed red and his eyes are bloodshot. Escaped strands of hair stick to his face and neck, with sweat. He looks awful.

“Hey,” Parnasse says, soft and questioning. He raises a hand to Jehan’s forehead but Jehan batts it away.

“I have a cold,” he sniffs. “And I think the thermostat is broken. Could you take a look at it? It’s so freaking hot.”

“It’s not the room, Jehan,” Parnasse says. “It’s just you.”

“Not in the mood,” Jehan states. He coughs and winces at the effort. “Could not be farther from the mood.”

Parnasse grins. “Pity. The mountain of used tissues was really doing it for me,” he says, lightly. “But no, not what I meant. Although you should be in bed. You’ve got more than a cold.” He pulls the pens in Jehan’s hair free and drops them onto the desk.

“I’ll be fine. I have a practice exam in two days. I can’t afford to spend one of them sleeping off the sniffles.”

“A _practice_ exam, Jehan, and you’re pyrexic,” Parnasse says, as he closes the window. Jehan gives him a disbelieving look and Parnasse shrugs one shoulder. “I watched House.”

“And now you’re a doctor,” Jehan says. “What are you doing? Don’t close the window.”

“You should be at a comfortable temperature. This isn’t comfortable.”

“Agreed. It’s fucking roasting,” Jehan snaps. Parnasse just rolls his eyes.

“Have you taken anything?” he asks.

“No,” Jehan answers, turning back to his notes. “I made some tea,” he mutters, “but I was so warm already.”

“Right,” Parnasse matter-of-factly. “Stop working, and lie down.” He strides towards the door and Jehan makes a noise of complaint. “Just think how cool the sheets will be,” Parnasse suggests as he leaves the room.

A quick raid of the kitchen cupboards turns up only an empty packet of paracetamol. He has more luck in the bathroom cabinet where he finds a box with a few remaining tablets. He brings this valuable treasure back to Jehan’s room, with a glass of water.

Jehan is lying spread eagled on the bed, face down. He has his eyes closed, but says, “I am only taking a break,” when Parnasse enters the room.

“Uh huh,” Parnasse agrees. He sets the glass down on the bedside table and presses the pill packet into Jehan’s sweaty hand. “Sit up, babe. I need you to take two of these and tell me where your phone is.”

Jehan curls up on his side and pushes himself into a sitting position. He obediently presses two tablets into his hand, and says, “In my trousers,” before swallowing them one at a time, with slow sips of water.

“Which trousers? Where are they?” Parnasse asks, glancing about the room.

“Um, the stripey lavender jeans, and not sure," is the slow response. "In the bathroom, maybe. I almost took a cold shower.”

“Stay here,” Parnasse instructs. Jehan nods weakly. He seems to have given up fighting Parnasse’s medical opinions. He lies back down, on his back this time. Parnasse reappears over him, with Jehan’s phone. He has finally divested himself of his jacket. Parnasse sits beside him on the bed and with one hand strokes Jehan’s sweat-soaked hair out of his face, whilst with the other scrolling through Jehan’s favourite contacts. “Which one is the doctor?”

“Joly,” Jehan tells him. “But don’t ask him to come. He won’t want to. He’ll get sick.” Jehan sits up suddenly. “You should go. You’ll get sick.” 

Parnasse quirks an eyebrow at Jehan and says dryly, “I’ll survive.” But Jehan frowns. 

He pushes Parnasse’s hand out of his hair, and notices a clean white square over the inside of Parnasse’s wrist. “What is this? Are you hurt?” He touches the square - it’s one of those self-adhesive bandages. Parnasse pulls his hand away and smiles softly.

“It’s nothing, Jehan.” He stands, Jehan’s mobile already pressed to his ear. “Lie back down.” Jehan sighs but does so. Parnasse ducks out of the room and Jehan listens to the low comforting cadence of his voice as he makes the call just outside the bedroom door.

When Parnasse returns, it is with a bowl of ice cubes and an announcement. “So apparently your doctor friend is into ice play,” he says.

“-is something I never needed to know,” Jehan responds. Parnasse smiles and sits beside Jehan on the bed.

“Well, he says it’s great when you’ve a fever.”

“Joly would know. He is always sick, or thinks he is.” 

“Top off,” Parnasse instructs. Jehan tries, bless him, but Parnasse eventually has to put down the bowl and strip the t-shirt off him himself. “Lie down, on your front,” Parnasse says, making a conscious effort to try and sound gentle rather than commanding.

Jehan complies and Parnasse rolls up his sleeves. He climbs onto the bed and straddles Jehan’s legs, resting on the backs of his thighs. Parnasse makes sure the bowl is in reach and steady on the bed. Jehan is quite out of it, but he still spots an opportunity and says, “I could see Bossuet or Musichetta doing this for Joly. Musichetta is Joly’s girlfriend, though you will rarely see them together without Bossuet, who is Joly’s flatmate, but also kind of his boyfriend. And ‘Chetta’s. I don’t kno-” Jehan breaks off in a sharp gasp at the first touch of ice to the back of his neck. “S’cold,” he murmurs.

“That’s the idea, yes,” Parnasse says. He draws the ice cube slowly downwards, from the nape of Jehan’s neck to the dip in his spine. “You were saying, ‘you don’t...’,” Parnasse prompts.

“I don’t know- why they haven’t ever - just told us,“ Jehan continues, between tiny intakes of breath. Parnasse draws another two lines down Jehan’s back, one to either side of the first.”They are so- obviously devoted to- one another. Who could judge them- as anything other- than- in love. They are a wonderful example.”

“If you like sharing,” Parnasse comments, and swaps the ice cube for another. He puts a steadying hand on the bed by Jehan’s hip and leans forward to run the ice back and forth along Jehan’s shoulders.

“Oh my God,” Jehan groans.

Parnasse is absolutely not going to get off on this, he tells himself sternly. Jehan is sick, and almost certainly has no idea what he sounds like right now.

Which is practically pornographic.

Jehan punctuates each moan with a curse, and each in a different language. Parnasse recognises French (Jehan’s preferred choice for swearing), and assumes the next is “Jesus Christ” in Italian, but after that he is lost. The colourful flurry of vowels and consonants has the same effect, understood or not; Parnasse wants to chase the ice cube with his mouth. Instead, he swipes it down Jehan’s sides, then plays dot to dot with the larger freckles on his back.

There is barely anything left to the ice cube when he traces the edge of Jehan’s boxers with it. His fingers are practically on Jehan’s skin, but Parnasse has lost the feeling in them.

Parnasse rises up onto his knees and, hoping his voice isn’t noticeably rough, says “Turn over.” Jehan does, slowly.

He smiles softly up at Parnasse once he has settled, and Parnasse kisses him on the forehead. “Don’t,” Jehan protests weakly. Parnasse strokes his cold numb fingers across his patient’s brow. Jehan sighs.

Parnasse continues with his icy ministrations, switching hand now. He draws wet circles all over Jehan’s torso, and following Jehan’s shuddering whine when Parnasse circles his nipples, tides himself over with a wet kiss to the underside of his jaw. It isn’t enough. “Stop,” Jehan whispers, “You’ll get sick.”

“Worth it,” Parnasse whispers back against his lips, and kisses him gently. Then again, a little less gently. Parnasse finishes by covering Jehan’s face with tracks of ice water, cleaning the sweat away. He follows the tracks with tiny feather-light kisses, that still leave Jehan’s face wet and cool.

There’s one ice cube left in the bowl that still has a little of its original shape. He presses it against Jehan’s lips until he squirms. “Too cold,” he pants. Then Parnasse warms his lips back up.

When Jehan’s mouth no longer feels cold to his own, Parnasse climbs carefully off Jehan and lifts the bowl from the bed. He dumps the bowl of icy water alongside Jehan’s phone on the desk, swings Jehan’s desk chair around to face the bed and sits. He watches Jehan for a while, until he says sleepily, “I can feel your gaze. Come to bed.”

“I’d use up valuable cool-side-of-the-bed space,” Parnasse points out.

Jehan is quiet then says, “Don’t come to bed. But do stop watching me like a creeper.”

Parnasse huffs a laugh and does as bid. He picks up a poetry anthology from Jehan’s desk, and flicks through it instead.

 

A while later his own phone buzzes in his pocket. He fishes it out and reads the text.

**How is he? Up for visitors?**

Maybe it’s the bias of twenty years in the wrong circles but it reads like a threat; like Jehan’s illness is a weak spot and his rivals have noticed. Parnasse replies immediately.

**Depends who’s asking and how the fuck you got this number.**

**It’s Courfeyrac, and I got it from Eponine. Hope that’s okay.**

Parnasse relaxes and looks over at Jehan. He watches him breathe for a few moments, noisily, especially on the inhale. Then he texts Courfeyrac back. **Fine. He’s fine. He’s sleeping.**

About twenty minutes later, there is a soft knock at the front door. Parnasse casts a glance over Jehan’s sleeping form and returns the poetry collection he’d been flicking through to Jehan’s desk. He answers the door to a massive bouquet of flowers and Courfeyrac.

Parnasse greets him wordlessly, with the slightest upwards head tilt. He steps back to let Courfeyrac in, and Courfeyrac strides straight into Jehan’s room. Parnasse does his best not to bristle, closes the front door, and follows him.

Courfeyrac has set the flowers, and a pharmacy bag that Parnasse hadn’t noticed, on the middle of the desk, but he has a single tulip in his hand when he takes a seat on the bed. Parnasse stays standing.

Courfeyrac brushes Jehan’s cheek with the flower and whispers, “Jehan, darling.”

Jehan blinks sleepily up at him. “Courf,” he says, happily. “Where’s Parnasse gone?” he asks, beginning to frown.

“Haven’t gone anywhere, babe,” Parnasse says from his station by the desk. 

Jehan relaxes and turns his attention back to Courfeyrac. They talk to each other in quiet voices, and gentles brushes of fingers, whilst Parnasse checks out what Courfeyrac brought - a heap of painkillers and other remedies. Parnasse fishes out paracetamol and ibuprofen from among them. Jehan can take more of the former in a couple of hours, and the latter he could take immediately. Parnasse looks back to where Jehan is smiling fondly at Courfeyrac, and doesn’t interrupt. Courfeyrac looks as though he has forgotten Parnasse is there. He is relaxed, chatty, and smiles brightly at Jehan as they talk.

Parnasse slips out of the room to refill Jehan’s water. When he returns, Courfeyrac is sitting beside Jehan on the bed, propped up on the same pillow, but carefully not touching the smaller man. Jehan is holding his tulip and watching Courfeyrac’s hands blur in the air as he gestures emphatically. Jehan looks up and beckons him, smiling softly. He pats the empty spot on the bed beside him.

Parnasse collects the packet of ibuprofen and makes Jehan take two and drink half the water before he finally climbs onto the bed. He tries to leave as much room as he can between Jehan and himself, with what space there is, but Jehan pulls him closer, leans against him, and continues listening to Courfeyrac’s story - about something that had happened to their unlucky friend, Bossuet. He tells it rather well, Parnasse admits. Jehan pushes Parnasse away a few minutes later, still too warm, but he laces their fingers together instead, and squeezes his hand when Parnasse gives a small huff of amusement at the end of Courfeyrac’s tale.

Later, after Jehan and Courfeyrac have both fallen asleep - Courfeyrac barely even still on the bed, and Jehan cocooned in his crocheted blanket after his temperature finally dropped back to passable, if not normal - Parnasse opens the message thread with Courfeyrac in his phone and saves his number under 'Bowtie'.

**Author's Note:**

> Please do not take your medical advice from crazy med students or people who's only credential is having watched Hugh Laurie fool Americans into thinking he's one of them. Consult real doctors.
> 
> Thanks for reading! I really like this one, even though it came out of nowhere. Part of the same storyline as Amalgam. But later.


End file.
